1. Field
The disclosed and claimed concept relates generally to handheld electronic devices and, more particularly, to handheld electronic devices having a display for a stroke-based input system, wherein the strokes represent one of a number of character segments and wherein multiple standard character segments are used to assemble a character, the strokes being entered upon a display active portion which is adjacent the display output portion, whereby a user may maintain focus on the device display.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numerous types of handheld electronic devices are known. Examples of such handheld electronic devices include, for instance, personal data assistants (PDAs), handheld computers, two-way pagers, cellular telephones, and the like. Many handheld electronic devices also feature wireless communication capability, although many such handheld electronic devices are stand-alone devices that are functional without communication with other devices. Such devices typically have a key-based input device, such as, but not limited to, a full or reduced QWERTY keyboard, or, a keypad as on a telephone and which typically requires a multitap type input or which relies upon disambiguation software. Such input devices are generally acceptable for languages that use a limited number of letters to form larger words. However, Asian languages typically utilize ideograms, that is, individual symbols that represent an entire word or other language element. Such languages typically have many thousands of common characters. As such, it is impractical to have a keyboard or keypad representing the numerous ideograms of eastern languages.
To overcome this barrier to utilizing Asian languages on handheld devices, methods and associated devices have been developed wherein separate strokes used in creating ideograms are represented by separate keys. Thus, while the individual strokes have no meaning, the stroke-keys may be used in a manner similar to letters in a western language. That is, just as multiple letters are used to form words, multiple stroke-keys may be used to form ideograms. Further, just as disambiguation software and predictive software may be used to aid the input of western words, similar disambiguation software and predictive software may be used to aid in selecting the intended ideogram.
Various schemes, or layouts, of the stroke-keys have been used. For example, one scheme placed right angle, or “corner,” stroke-keys at the corners of a telephone keypad. Other schemes placed selected strokes in the order identified by China's Ministry of Information Industry. That is, the government of China has identified, and provided an order for, five common strokes in a well known order, not unlike the musical scale of do, re, mi. These strokes include heng, a horizontal stroke, shu, a vertical stroke, pie, a downward slant from left to right, na, a downward slant from right to left, and zhe, a right angle stroke having a horizontal line from left to right, followed by a downward line. Thus, for example, on a twelve key keypad (three keys by four keys as on a standard telephone) the “1” key may include no letters and the heng stroke, the “2” key may include the letters “ABC” as well as the shu stroke, and so on. Thus, those who have grown accustomed to the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry's order are quickly able to find the desired stroke-key. Additional keys may have other common strokes such as a “dot” or a complete square.
While this method allows a user to approximate a number of ideograms, the large variety of ideograms with similar strokes and a lack of a specific order of entering the stroke-keys mean that disambiguation software and predictive software are typically needed to identify the intended ideogram. In practice, users of such key based entry method typically enter at least two strokes to create a partial ideogram. Once the strokes are entered, the user is presented with a list displaying a number of ideograms that the disambiguation software and/or predictive software suggest as the desired ideogram. If the desired ideogram is not on the initial list, the user enters additional strokes. After each stroke is entered, the disambiguation software and/or predictive software may suggest new ideograms based on the newly input strokes.
Unfortunately, a key-based input system requires the user to constantly shift focus between the keypad and the screen. That is, as the user enters a sequence of stroke-keys, the user must focus, that is, glance, at the display between each key input in order to determine if the disambiguation software and/or predictive software has presented the desired ideogram.
Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.